I’m a 56-year-old woman who is a professional pianist. I have accompanied many soloists, choirs, and other groups, and worked with many excellent directors and conductors.
For several years, I have played for a male choir that is part of the Norwegian Singers Association of America. These men have sung for decades, and sponsor a Sangerfest every two years in which 250 men come together to sing under the direction of a professor of music and with a full orchestra.
So I know about male singing, and I have participated in discussions with knowledgeable people about the subject of men and singing.
With all due respect, Father, no, men would NOT sing if you replaced the hymns with chant.
There are several reasons why men in the United States do not sing.
Yes, one of the reasons is songs and hymns that are somewhat effeminate in their melody and words. But it would be a
bad mistake to conclude that this is the primary reason why men do not sing in the Mass. If you look at many of the traditional hymns, the language is so flowery that you can smell it, and many of these hymns have a mincing melody that is hardly masculine.
There are two reasons why men in the U.S. do not sing, in Mass, or anywhere else.
- They don’t know how. Over the last several decades, musical education in the public and private schools has been decreased to only a small bit of time each week, and in some schools, eliminated entirely. In many urban schools, music education must be “culturally relevant.” In our city, this means that the half-hour weekly choral music time in the elementary schools is used to learn “hip hop” and “rap.” When music teachers attempt to teach traditional music reading skills, singing techniques, and music literature, they are accused of racism and told that their class is “white Eurocentric.” Sad, but true.
- Our U.S. musical culture is “spectator” not “participatory.” We attend concerts and watch, but we don’t join choirs and sing.
There is a third reason why men don’t sing, and all the men and boys know it, but they don’t voice it around priests. I’ll come right out and say it–many boys and men consider singing “gay.” It’s amazing that with all the push for gay marriage and gay rights and gay acceptance, that men in the U.S. actually think that singing is “gay” (and why is that “bad?” if gay marriage is OK?) , but they do, just like they consider the difficult sport of figure skating “gay.”
Chant would be utter disaster. In order to sing chant, people have to be able to (1) listen and hear the note pattern OR read the neumes or notes, and (2) sing correctly.
Most people, male and female, in the U.S., listen mainly to popular music, either rock/pop, or country. This kind of music does not train the ear well, and this means that it’s hard for most people to listen to a musical phrase and then sing it back again. Chant is especially difficult, as it is “random,” with no “pattern” that the average person can hear, and so the non-musician will not be able to learn the chant unless it is extremely simple. And singing “simple” pieces is NOT conducive to adult worship.
Also, most people in the U.S. do not read music at all, so if the chant notation is given to them, they won’t know what to do with it. From what I’ve seen in Catholic parishes, very seldom is the notation for a chant given to the congregation, so we have no choice but to attempt to learn it “by ear.”
Finally, most people in the U.S. do NOT know how to sing correctly, and so they sing through their noses, deep in their chests (including the women), and they use “pop” techniques like “scooping.” All of these singing techniques make chant especially sound just awful.
Do you understand what I’m saying? People who can’t sing can’t sing chant! Those people who say, “Chant is easier,” are saying that because they like chant and are able to sing. But they’re wrong when it comes to most other people!
Father, if you want men to sing, you’re going to have to (1) teach them to sing and (2) somehow reverse the cultural trend from spectating to participation. I think this is possible and that it is necessary in the Catholic Church in the U.S., But at this time, for some reason, discussion of music in the U.S. Catholic Church is verboten. It just doesn’t happen. It’s a subject that everyone with any authority veers away from, perhaps because they don’t want to start an all-out fight. But the fight is already there.
The “music wars” that plagued the Protestant churches in the 1970s and 1980s have moved to the Catholic parishes, and we now have a decided “us vs. them” mentality, in which those who love chant and other ancient forms insist that this is the only music worthy of the Mass, while those who love hymns and contemporary music insist that this kind of music is particularly well-suited to the OF Mass.
I appreciate that you want things to get better in the Mass and you want men to sing. But I think that chant is not The Answer.
